DBTS Web Articles
In perhaps John Lennon’s most famous song, “Imagine,” he calls people to envision a world that would be at peace—where “the world will be as one.” He views certain ideas or beliefs as currently standing in the way of this utopia, including countries, religion, and...
After the shooting at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood last Friday, several have placed blame on pro-life advocates who have been campaigning against Planned Parenthood. Their campaign has become more aggressive since undercover videos revealing Planned...
Choosing Hats (an apologetics site) has a lengthy article pointing out the fallacies of four common arguments given in support of Planned Parenthood and some suggestions for how you can push back against these arguments. I thought I’d provide a brief summary of the...
When the King James Version was published in 1611, there were actually two printed editions, with 450 variations in the biblical text (Norton, Textual History of the King James Bible, 173–79). These are commonly called the “He” and “She” Bibles, from their respective...
Church Works Media has produced a number of devotional works over the past few years. Each has a special emphasis (e.g., missions, prayer, suffering) that focuses on unpacking biblical texts and helpfully applying them to life. I was asked to participate in the...
Next year will be our 40th year of helping local churches prepare men for gospel ministry. God has been very kind to DBTS through these four decades of ministry. DBTS grads are serving all over the United States and advancing the gospel around the world. There are a...
Over the past several years we have had several posts about a papyrus fragment of the Gospel of Mark discovered several years ago that preliminarily dates from the 1st century A.D. This would make it the earliest copy of the New Testament known to exist and the only...
As a conservative instructor at a conservative school, I occasionally meet with surprise that I use and love my NIV Bible. Classed by most as coming from the “functionally equivalent” school of Bible translation, the NIV has long been viewed with skepticism by many in...
Dear Fellow Servant of Jesus Christ: It seems like every day brings more bad news in this crazy, sin-cursed world. And it seems, at least sometimes, like God's people are dropping into defense-mode as the world becomes increasingly hostile toward Christianity. While...
During his lifetime, C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) received thousands of letters from young fans who had read the Chronicles of Narnia and wanted to connect with the author. One such fan was an American girl named Joan Lancaster, who wrote to Lewis in June of 1956. We don’t...
Over the past decade it has been popular to distinguish between “cultural fundamentalism” and “historic fundamentalism.” Cultural fundamentalism is regarded by its critics as very, very bad. It consists of folksy/outdated traditionalism that has drifted from its...
In 1768 the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire wrote: “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” Voltaire was not trying to denigrate Christianity. Rather, he was arguing for the social benefit of belief in God. He thought that belief in God...
It’s no secret that I have an abiding interest in the place and function of sanctification in the life of believers. The journey that began for me as a doctoral dissertation answering the Keswick model of sanctification that has historically punished dispensational...
“OK, men, everyone gather around, and let’s get this football season under way,” Coach Paul deTarsus bellowed out. As the young recruits swaggered over, jostling each other manfully, Coach deTarsus continued gruffly, “This year the school steering committee has asked...
This past Wednesday, Peter Hubbard, author of Love into Light: The Gospel, the Homosexual, and the Church, delivered the annual William R. Rice lectures at DBTS. In his three lectures, Hubbard talked about how to understand and how to show biblical love to those who...
I teach a seminary class entitled Biblical Creationism. One of the textbooks is Refuting Evolution (2nd ed., 2008) by Jonathan Sarfati of Creation Ministries International. This book is the largest-selling creation book of all time. Because of the importance of this...
Michael Kruger makes some excellent points on this subject over at his blog, Canon Fodder. He notes: But, there is a second assumption behind the “take your medicine” approach to the biblical languages. Many students assume that the study of the languages is useless...
In a previous post I noted the publication of the latest edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, NA28. An excellent review of the new 28th edition has been produced by Peter Williams, Warden of Tyndale House. The textual changes come in the Catholic or...
At the beginning of the year I mentioned in a post that in September of 2011, Liberty University Biblical Studies Symposium held a discussion on the topic, “Which Bible Translation Should I Use?” featuring Dr. Ray Clendenen (HCSB), Dr. Wayne Grudem (ESV), and Dr. Doug...
This is the title of a somewhat technical article by Harvey Minkoff over at Bible History Daily in which he discusses the nature of the Hebrew language, how matres lectionis and later, vowel points were added to the text, and how all this can affect translation and...
This is the provocative title of a post by Stan Porter, well-known NT scholar, challenging Dan Wallace's claim that a 1st century copy of Mark has apparently been discovered. We reported on Dan's claim in a series of posts here, here, here, and here. You can read...
Were Old Testament believers, as a necessary part of their sanctification, permanently indwelt by the Holy Spirit? In this post I will respond to this question by initially providing a few resources that treat this subject and then provide a brief theological argument...
Many people do not believe so. Bruce K. Waltke says, “no clear passage [of Scripture] teaches the restoration of national Israel” because “the Jewish nation no longer has a place as the special people of God.” Matt Waymeyer believes that Waltke is wrong and explains...
According to common lore, Henry David Thoreau, the American philosopher, poet, and naturalist, was asked on his deathbed if he had made his peace with God. Thoreau supposedly replied, "I did not know we ever quarreled." Most people, however, are probably not so...
Allan Bevere has some interesting observations about grade expectations by students: When I was in college and graduate school many years ago, most students, I think, had no assumptions about what grade they deserved on an assignment for a class. There were exceptions...
Most of us are familiar with the KJV's reporting of Paul's declaration in Rom 1:14, "I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise." We are commonly told that the motivation for Paul's willingness to give himself to the...
As you may remember, up until chapter 13 Paul is known in Acts by his other name, Saul. Acts 13 records the start of Paul's first missionary journey. Barnabas and Saul have traveled to the island of Cyprus, where they are attempting to preach the gospel to the Roman...
With this post I finish my critique of the framework interpretation of the creation week. As I stated in the first post, three major theses support the framework view. Having looked at the first and second arguments, I will focus on the final one in this post. The...
In my previous post, I asked if churches should abandon the King James Version for a modern English translation. I answered, "Yes," and suggested there were two main reasons. The first is the inferior Greek text from which the KJV was translated, the Textus Receptus...
With this post I continue my critique of the framework interpretation of the creation week. As I stated in the previous post, three major theses support the framework view. Having looked at the first argument, I will focus on the second argument in this post. The...
Yes. I suppose I should qualify that answer. A church should not switch from (abandon) the KJV to another version of the Bible if it would truly be harmful to the well-being of the church. But it is difficult to imagine there are many instances where this would be the...
There is a new web site, Early Bible, that recently came online, whose purpose is to display pictures of the New Testament papyrus manuscripts. It is very nicely done and hopefully more papyri will be coming online soon.
Previously (here, here, and here), we reported on seven new papyrus manuscript finds reported by Dan Wallace, including a first-century copy of Mark's Gospel. Below is a recent video with Dan giving a few more details.
The Federalist Papers are a series of 85 essays supporting the ratification of the United States Constitution, written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. Madison himself is commonly known as the Father of the Constitution. Federal judges, when...
The current popularity of the framework interpretation of the Genesis creation account is largely a result of the work of Reformed scholar Meredith G. Kline. His initial entry was an article in the late 1950s, “Because It Had Not Rained” (Westminster Theological...
The three main Bible software programs today are Logos, BibleWorks, and Accordance. Logos and BibleWorks are mainly for the PC (though Logos now has a Macintosh version), while Accordance is exclusively a Mac product. BibleWorks and Accordance are commonly known for...
The King James-only view argues that only the 1611 KJV is the Word of God in English. All other versions or translations are so corrupt that they are not to be used, nor be appealed to as the Word of God. Most KJV-only advocates contend that the printed Greek text...
In light of Bill Combs’s recent posts on the King James Version, I thought it might be helpful to look briefly at another Bible translation that dominated Western Christendom for even longer than the King James. From time to time, KJV-only advocates have argued for...
The King James-only movement suggests that with the coming of the KJV there was no need for further translation work and that the proliferation of modern versions is harmful to the church. Yet the translators of the KJV faced the same objection. They note in their...
I recently worked through a new commentary, Ecclesiastes: The Philippians of the Old Testament, by William D. Barrick. Dr. Barrick is a Professor of Old Testament and Director of the Th.D. program at The Master’s Seminary. He has authored a number of books and journal...
The King James-only movement refuses to recognize any other translation in English as the Word of God. As I noted in previous posts (here and here), the Preface to the 1611 KJV is an embarrassment to the KJV-only position because in the Preface the translators...
In a previous post I noted that the Preface to the 1611 King James Version is an embarrassment to KJV-only advocates because in it the translators of the KJV make a series of statements that argue against the KJV-only position. Since KJV-only proponents insist that...
Apparently, it was Benjamin Franklin who first said that the only thing we can be certain of is death and taxes. We are reminded of that again today, April 15, though the IRS has given us a couple of extra days this year to file our tax returns. Even the ancient...
Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? (Ecc 7:16, ESV) Can “be not overly righteous” really be saying what it seems to be saying? Does God actually want us to tone down our righteousness? In order to correctly...
When the King James Version of the Bible came off the press of Robert Barker in 1611, it contained an eleven-page preface titled “The Translators to the Reader.” This preface is primarily a defense of the new translation, but it also provides important information...
Though there are a number of Christians who question a literal interpretation of the creation week, a closer look at Genesis 1:1–2:3 should challenge those who have abandoned or are uncertain about the traditional understanding of the creation days. I will give four...
In my first post on this subject, I argued that the KJV-only position believes that only the KJV of the Bible is the Word of God, and I suggested that the somewhat official beginning of this movement should be traced to the publication of the 1881 revision of the KJV,...
In previous posts (here, here, and here), I have argued that the beginning of the KJV-only movement can be traced to the publication of the 1881 revision of the KJV, the Revised Version (RV), and the opposition to it by Dean Burgon, which was set forth in his 1883...